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Article: Negotiating Language Status in Multilingual Jurisdictions: Rhetoric and Reality
Title | Negotiating Language Status in Multilingual Jurisdictions: Rhetoric and Reality |
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Authors | |
Keywords | Legal bilingualism Multilingualism Rhetoric Legal language Language status Official language Language policy |
Issue Date | 2016 |
Publisher | Walter de Gruyter. The Journal's web site is located at http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/semi?rskey=PjAZjG&result=322&q= |
Citation | Semiotica, 2016, v. 2016 n. 209, p. 371-396 How to Cite? |
Abstract | About a quarter of legal jurisdictions in the world operate in more than one language. Despite this, language policies governing the functioning of law in such jurisdictions, other than in the European Union, rarely receive much attention in research. Given, however, that the policy contrast between legal monolingualism and multilingualism is often a matter of strategic response to the rising or declining power of one or more particular language communities, the conferring of legal authority on some language(s) but not others calls for analysis. Advocacy and justification surrounding potential or actual change of legal language, for example, consists of competing rhetorics advanced by politicians, legal professionals, and campaign groups, and to this extent politics permeates both the promotion and presentation of legal multilingualism, despite reluctance among legal policy makers to engage directly with this aspect of the process. This article situates legal multilingualism within a wider understanding of multilingualism and language policy. It first surveys status labels assigned to languages in multilingual jurisdictions. It then compares, across jurisdictions, rhetorical strategies deployed in promoting and opposing specific proposals about language status, in both official and public discourses, and analyses contradictions and dilemmas embedded in them. The argument extends [Rhetoric as jurisprudence: An introduction to the politics of legal language. Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 4(1). 88–122] observation that legal discourse is pre-eminently a discourse of power. But if use of legal language is political, it is suggested, then the processes of negotiation which establish a language for such use are even more so. |
Persistent Identifier | http://hdl.handle.net/10722/202404 |
ISSN | 2021 Impact Factor: 0.475 2020 SCImago Journal Rankings: 0.230 |
ISI Accession Number ID |
DC Field | Value | Language |
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dc.contributor.author | Leung, JHC | - |
dc.date.accessioned | 2014-09-19T07:48:28Z | - |
dc.date.available | 2014-09-19T07:48:28Z | - |
dc.date.issued | 2016 | - |
dc.identifier.citation | Semiotica, 2016, v. 2016 n. 209, p. 371-396 | - |
dc.identifier.issn | 0037-1998 | - |
dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10722/202404 | - |
dc.description.abstract | About a quarter of legal jurisdictions in the world operate in more than one language. Despite this, language policies governing the functioning of law in such jurisdictions, other than in the European Union, rarely receive much attention in research. Given, however, that the policy contrast between legal monolingualism and multilingualism is often a matter of strategic response to the rising or declining power of one or more particular language communities, the conferring of legal authority on some language(s) but not others calls for analysis. Advocacy and justification surrounding potential or actual change of legal language, for example, consists of competing rhetorics advanced by politicians, legal professionals, and campaign groups, and to this extent politics permeates both the promotion and presentation of legal multilingualism, despite reluctance among legal policy makers to engage directly with this aspect of the process. This article situates legal multilingualism within a wider understanding of multilingualism and language policy. It first surveys status labels assigned to languages in multilingual jurisdictions. It then compares, across jurisdictions, rhetorical strategies deployed in promoting and opposing specific proposals about language status, in both official and public discourses, and analyses contradictions and dilemmas embedded in them. The argument extends [Rhetoric as jurisprudence: An introduction to the politics of legal language. Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 4(1). 88–122] observation that legal discourse is pre-eminently a discourse of power. But if use of legal language is political, it is suggested, then the processes of negotiation which establish a language for such use are even more so. | - |
dc.language | eng | - |
dc.publisher | Walter de Gruyter. The Journal's web site is located at http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/semi?rskey=PjAZjG&result=322&q= | - |
dc.relation.ispartof | Semiotica | - |
dc.rights | © 2016 by De Gruyter Mouton. The final publication is available at www.degruyter.com | - |
dc.subject | Legal bilingualism | - |
dc.subject | Multilingualism | - |
dc.subject | Rhetoric | - |
dc.subject | Legal language | - |
dc.subject | Language status | - |
dc.subject | Official language | - |
dc.subject | Language policy | - |
dc.title | Negotiating Language Status in Multilingual Jurisdictions: Rhetoric and Reality | - |
dc.type | Article | - |
dc.identifier.email | Leung, JHC: hiuchi@hku.hk | - |
dc.identifier.authority | Leung, JHC=rp01168 | - |
dc.description.nature | published_or_final_version | - |
dc.identifier.doi | 10.1515/sem-2016-0013 | - |
dc.identifier.scopus | eid_2-s2.0-84960931845 | - |
dc.identifier.hkuros | 235804 | - |
dc.identifier.volume | 2016 | - |
dc.identifier.issue | 209 | - |
dc.identifier.spage | 371 | - |
dc.identifier.epage | 396 | - |
dc.identifier.isi | WOS:000371238800021 | - |
dc.publisher.place | Germany | - |
dc.identifier.issnl | 0037-1998 | - |